Networked Incitement and the New Politics of Censorship

From state-sponsored censorship to litigious billionaires weaponizing SLAPP suits, press freedom is under assault on numerous fronts. But perhaps one of the most insidious threats to free speech and the media is self-censorship, which has more than tripled in the US since McCarthyism in the 1950s. Coordinated harassment campaigns are partly to blame for the rise of self-censorship: one study found more than a third of journalists surveyed reported avoiding certain topics in their writing due to online harassment. In this event Arwa Mahdawi will draw both from her own experience as a Guardian columnist, as well as recent case studies, to examine the ways in which coordinated online harassment campaigns affect newsroom coverage—particularly when it comes to topics like women, Palestine, and trans rights—and drive certain voices out of the media. The event will probe ways in which newsrooms can better support writers who are the targets of networked incitement and coordinated disinformation or pressure campaigns.

Arwa Mahdawi is a visiting pracitioner at the Center for Media at Risk. She is also a columnist at The Guardian and part of Flaming Hydra, a worker-owned journalism cooperative. She covers an expansive beat, including everything from politics to pop culture, but her work often focuses on marginalized groups and systems of power.

Mahdawi writes a weekly Guardian column and Guardian newsletter called “The Week in Patriarchy,” which reviews the most important stories on feminism, sexism and those fighting for equality. She is also the creator of the satirical viral website Rent-A-Minority, which is an “Uber for diversity.” Arwa is the author of Strong Female Lead (Hodder, 2021), which makes the case for redefining how we think about leadership, and contributed a chapter to Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic (Saqi, 2017), a Sunday Times Best Humour Book of the Year.

At the Center, Arwa will be developing a project focused on how newsrooms can better respond to the harassment and intimidation that has become an everyday occurrence for many journalists in the U.S.

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